Inia Te Wiata’s ashes home

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32660, 16 July 1971, Page 1

Inia Te Wiata’s ashes home

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 15. The people of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe today laid to rest their great son, the bass singer, Inia Te Wiata, whose ashes were placed in a shallow vault in the cemetery of the historic church called “Rangiatea,” in Otaki.

About 500 mourners packed the church for the funeral service which was conducted by Archdeacon T. P. N. Panapa. Assisting him were the issistant Bishop of Wellington (the Rt Rev. G. M. McKenzie and the Rt Rev. P. Reeves, Bishop of Waiapu. The Bishop of Aotearoa (Bishop Manu Bennett) read the eulogy to the singer and said in his tribute that Sir Turi Carroll had asked him to tjell the people of Otaki that Inia did not belong to them but to the people of New Zealand.

“Now that he has reached the top of his career he belongs among the Sir Apirana Ngatas and Sir Peter Bucks,” Bishop Bennett said. Bishop Bennett said that he and the late Inia Te Wiata had grown up together in Otaki, gone to the same school and worshipped in the same church.

“He always wanted to be buried in the cemetery of this church,” Bishop Bennett said.

Earlier at the Ngati-Rau-kawa marae visitors were welcomed on to the marae by the elders of the tribe. Tributes paid included that by the Minister of Maori and Island Affairs (Mr MacIntyre). The urn of ashes was carried from the porch of the marae and out to the hearse by a cousin of the singer, Mr D. J. F. Rikihana. The immediate family, a son William, and daughter Evelyn, and their families followed Mr Rikihana and his sister as they walked behind the hearse.

As the cortege travelled

through Otaki township citi- ’ zens stopped in the street i and shops closed. Flags were flown at halfmast on the Raukawa marae, the primary school Inia Te

Wiata attended and banks and post offices. At the church Te Wiata’s grandson, Tekuni, carried the um into the church (see picture).